The Census Bureau says the Metro area hit 1.866-million last June 30, vs. local government estimates (passed up to the State Demographer before becoming “official”) that had us at just under 2-million. The difference is more than six percent, equal to three years of our current pace of 2% annual growth.

Cities and Counties in Nevada are incented to exaggerate growth because each jurisdiction’s population is a primary factor in determining how much of the state’s “Consolidated Tax Distribution” they get.

CTX, as it is known in government finance circles, is a complex formula that divvies up a group of state taxes including the car registration tax, liquor taxes, and cigarette taxes.

If Henderson, for example, has more people than North Las Vegas, then Henderson gets a bigger piece of the pie and North Las Vegas gets a smaller piece of the pie. As a result, all local governments exaggerate. Every ten years, they have to drop down to the official census count.

The unfortunate side effect of exaggerating growth is that anti-family lawmakers point to the exaggerated population counts and claim they need to raise taxes on existing Nevada families in order to provide government services to pretend people.